Debian is a universal operating system used on many other embedded devices, and also on home computers. Using Debian on the FreeRunner gives access to the Huge army of software packaged in the Debian repositories, already compiled for the Neo's arm(v4) processor. Moreover, one can build one's own source files for programs without having to learn the OpenEmbedded way. For example compiling natively is a snap with Debian, just apt-get gcc&libc-dev.

For an existing Debian/Ubuntu user, choosing Debian for Neo FreeRunner makes phone a very familiar, trustworthy and flexible place to hack in.

The bulk of information related to running Debian on FreeRunner is supposed to be at wiki.debian.org. For all installation, support or bug reporting needs please see DebianOnFreeRunner in the Debian wiki.

The current method of installation, install.sh, is not fail-proof. Work is progressing on a real debian-installer support. Please be sure Bash is installed before trying install.sh. The main reason why install.sh fails is because it installs debian unstable which is constantly in motion.

Installation Debian

The following steps are a quick installation guide with and installed SHR on your freerunner and Qi as bootloader already installed on your freerunner. For further information refer to the Debian on Freerunner Wiki.

NOTE: The installation script for Debian, used in the following manual, installs additional software packages in SHR to run a complete Debian installation process. So your SHR distribution should have some space left. Flash memory with a minimal SHR distribution or remove software packages with opkg.

Login to Freerunner with SHR

Login to your freerunner with:

ssh -X -l root 192.168.0.202

with an USB Networking connection and an IP-address 192.168.0.202 of your freerunner. Change the IP-address if your network settings differ from this IP-address.

Script Installation and Running install.sh

The following commands above assumes that you have Qi installed and you want to use a single partition for Debian on freerunner. The SD card (2GB suggested) will be formated by the script. Installation process will take up to 30 min.

Debian Showcase: Desktop Environments And Applications

fbpanel + Matchbox

It is not really a Desktop environment, but using fbpanel with Matchbox you can have a fast, lightweight, gtk2 desktop panel.

Now choose your theme, font and save it. To see changes do 'killall fbpanel'. (killall requires psmisc package to be installed)

Illume

Debian with illume, and Zhone running

Debian with illume, and Zhone running, with the on-screen keyboard visible

Illume, the desktop environment used in recent openmoko distribution releases, is also available under Debian. It's part of the Enlightenment window manager version 17 (which is currently in the alpha stage of development), which the Debian FSO package maintainers have placed in their repository. If you have a Debian FSO system running, you can use the following commands to install illume.

LXDE

I you want a really nice desktop enviroment but you think XFCE is too fat, you can try to install LXDE. It give to you the GTK comfort, but use only a fraction of the ram needed by XFCE.

Debian with lxde and Zhone running

To install it:

apt-get install lxde

to launch it create a /etc/init.d/lxde script in the same way descripted for xfce4, replacing startxfce4 occurrences with startlxde.

OpenOffice.org

Debian running OpenOffice.org 3

Did we already mention you can install anything in Debian?

XFCE

The debian installation script installs by default the matchbox window manager. It doesn't feature a desktop environment. xfce is a small and lightweight desktop environment and so is quite fast for the FreeRunner.

The desktop takes a while to start but once up was snappy as can be expected.
I've not yet looked at the reason for the seemingly too slow start for the desktop.

zhone is available from the "Office" menu in xfce.
The matchbox keyboard is available in "Accessories".

If you want to display the screen on the long side (ie rotated, 4:3 aspect), add the following to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf in both the Device and InputDevice sections :

Option "Rotate" "CCW"

and then (re)start xfce.

If you want to be able to shutdown/restart the device, add the following line to /etc/sudoers (don't forget to replace username with your actual username):

username localhost = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/xfsm-shutdown-helper

Using matchbox-window-manager with XFCE

XFCE's window manager is poorly configured for use with the FreeRunner. Fortunately, matchbox's window manager is compatible with xfce. To use the matchbox window manager, modify ~/.xsession as follows:

Debian is a universal operating system used on many other embedded devices, and also on home computers. Using Debian on the FreeRunner gives access to the Huge army of software packaged in the Debian repositories, already compiled for the Neo's arm(v4) processor. Moreover, one can build one's own source files for programs without having to learn the OpenEmbedded way. For example compiling natively is a snap with Debian, just apt-get gcc&libc-dev.

For an existing Debian/Ubuntu user, choosing Debian for Neo FreeRunner makes phone a very familiar, trustworthy and flexible place to hack in.

The bulk of information related to running Debian on FreeRunner is supposed to be at wiki.debian.org. For all installation, support or bug reporting needs please see DebianOnFreeRunner in the Debian wiki.

The current method of installation, install.sh, is not fail-proof. Work is progressing on a real debian-installer support. Please be sure Bash is installed before trying install.sh. The main reason why install.sh fails is because it installs debian unstable which is constantly in motion.

Installation Debian

The following steps are a quick installation guide with and installed SHR on your freerunner and Qi as bootloader already installed on your freerunner. For further information refer to the Debian on Freerunner Wiki.

NOTE: The installation script for Debian, used in the following manual, installs additional software packages in SHR to run a complete Debian installation process. So your SHR distribution should have some space left. Flash memory with a minimal SHR distribution or remove software packages with opkg.

Login to Freerunner with SHR

Login to your freerunner with:

ssh -X -l root 192.168.0.202

with an USB Networking connection and an IP-address 192.168.0.202 of your freerunner. Change the IP-address if your network settings differ from this IP-address.

Script Installation and Running install.sh

The following commands above assumes that you have Qi installed and you want to use a single partition for Debian on freerunner. The SD card (2GB suggested) will be formated by the script. Installation process will take up to 30 min.

Debian Showcase: Desktop Environments And Applications

fbpanel + Matchbox

It is not really a Desktop environment, but using fbpanel with Matchbox you can have a fast, lightweight, gtk2 desktop panel.

Now choose your theme, font and save it. To see changes do 'killall fbpanel'. (killall requires psmisc package to be installed)

Illume

Debian with illume, and Zhone running

Debian with illume, and Zhone running, with the on-screen keyboard visible

Illume, the desktop environment used in recent openmoko distribution releases, is also available under Debian. It's part of the Enlightenment window manager version 17 (which is currently in the alpha stage of development), which the Debian FSO package maintainers have placed in their repository. If you have a Debian FSO system running, you can use the following commands to install illume.

LXDE

I you want a really nice desktop enviroment but you think XFCE is too fat, you can try to install LXDE. It give to you the GTK comfort, but use only a fraction of the ram needed by XFCE.

Debian with lxde and Zhone running

To install it:

apt-get install lxde

to launch it create a /etc/init.d/lxde script in the same way descripted for xfce4, replacing startxfce4 occurrences with startlxde.

OpenOffice.org

Debian running OpenOffice.org 3

Did we already mention you can install anything in Debian?

XFCE

The debian installation script installs by default the matchbox window manager. It doesn't feature a desktop environment. xfce is a small and lightweight desktop environment and so is quite fast for the FreeRunner.

The desktop takes a while to start but once up was snappy as can be expected.
I've not yet looked at the reason for the seemingly too slow start for the desktop.

zhone is available from the "Office" menu in xfce.
The matchbox keyboard is available in "Accessories".

If you want to display the screen on the long side (ie rotated, 4:3 aspect), add the following to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf in both the Device and InputDevice sections :

Option "Rotate" "CCW"

and then (re)start xfce.

If you want to be able to shutdown/restart the device, add the following line to /etc/sudoers (don't forget to replace username with your actual username):

username localhost = NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/xfsm-shutdown-helper

Using matchbox-window-manager with XFCE

XFCE's window manager is poorly configured for use with the FreeRunner. Fortunately, matchbox's window manager is compatible with xfce. To use the matchbox window manager, modify ~/.xsession as follows: